Alan Cumming on ’80s AIDS Crisis: ‘I Know a Lot of Young Gay Guys Who Are Like, “Who Cares?”’
Alan Cumming stars in After Louie, a film depicting the generational difference between gay men who lived through the 1980s AIDS crisis and those who were born later.
Cumming recently spoke to the Guardian about the film, saying, “I know so many older gay men who are like: ‘You don’t know what the AIDS crisis was like,’ but I also know a lot of young gay guys who are like, ‘Who cares?’”
But for himself, Cummings says: “I can see it from both sides. I can understand why younger people can feel slightly patronized by older people who lived through it. But at the same time, I can also understand the bewilderment and despair that people from an older generation went through.”
The AIDS crisis began in 1981, affecting both gay and straight individuals but taking a particularly heavy toll on major cities and their gay communities. Both New York and San Francisco were epicenters for rapidly increasing HIV/AIDS cases.
Gay activists fought to shed a public spotlight on the increasingly dire needs of their communities, marching and demanding better medical funding and more education about treatment and preventive care.
Larry Kramer, who founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis nonprofit in 1982, was a key figure in the fight and has publicly endorsed After Louie on the film’s Kickstarter page.
In the end, Cumming concludes, “Isn’t it amazing that these kids don’t have to worry like we did?”
After Louie’s world premiere is March 17 at the BFI Flare film festival in London.
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